on the other hand, put it very near the river, and these, although of less authority than Norden, are followed in Mr. Rendle's plan. Probably Norden's Bear Garden was an older one than that which afterwards became the Hope.[1] The provision as to the wharfs and bridges seems to indicate an intention to open the Rose at Michaelmas 1587, and I see no reason to doubt that it was in fact ready for occupation by about that date. On 29 October the Privy Council called the attention of the Surrey justices to complaints from Southwark of breaches of the rule against plays on Sunday, 'especiallie within the Libertie of the Clincke and in the parish of St. Saviour's in Southwarke'. There may, of course, have been plays at inns in the Clink, but it is more natural to take the protest as one against the newly opened Rose. No other regular theatre existed in the Clink at this time. That the Rose was built by 1588 appears from a record of the Sewer Commission for Surrey.[2] It is not in Smith's plan of 1588, but this may easily not have been quite up to date.
The next that is heard of the Rose is probably in 1592.[3] In March and April of that year Henslowe, who had recently taken his famous 'diary' into use as a financial memorandum book, noted in it some building expenditure, and a little later set out 'a note of suche carges as I haue layd owt a bowte my playe howsse in the yeare of our lord 1592'.[4] Henslowe is not known to have owned Newington Butts, or any other theatre except the Rose, and it is reasonable to assume that this is what he meant by 'my playe howsse'. The work probably began in or before January, as an entry half-way through the list is dated on 6 February. It entailed the purchase of a barge and a certain amount of breaking up and paling and wharfing. Henslowe appears to have done the
- ↑ Cf. Dekker, Satiromastix, 1247, 'th'ast a breath as sweet as the Rose, that growes by the Beare-garden'.
- ↑ G. L. Gomme, The Story of London Maps (Geographical Journal, xxxi. 628), '1588. Henchley.—Item, we present Phillip Henchley to pull upp all the pylles that stand in the common sewer against the play-house to the stopping of the water course, the which to be done by midsomer next uppon paine of x^s yf it be undone. x^s (done)'. Wallace, in The Times (1914), says that these records mention the theatre as 'new' in April 1588, and show other amercements during the next eighteen years.
- ↑ Dr. Greg, in Henslowe, ii. 46, is, I think, successful in showing that all the dated building entries belong to 1592 and not to 1591 or 1593. I suppose the scattered entries with the date '1591' to have been written in first, and the continuous account under the date '1592' added later, probably after Henslowe had changed the year-date in his play-entries, which seems to have been on 6 May.
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 7.
